


In The City of Steel

by Maur



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 17:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maur/pseuds/Maur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wizards. And dragons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The City of Steel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spuffyduds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/gifts).



"You'll turn into a dwarf if you never leave the caverns," Seryozha said one - one morning, Zhenya concluded after a moment's thought, turning his attention away from the slow heartbeat of the mountain and towards the dance of the stars. It was so easy to lose track of time, when the only light was the soft glow of fungus and jars of luminous beetles.

"I'm fine," Zhenya said, brushing chalk dust away from the slate worktop and bending to check some of James' figures. He might have stayed strong if Seryozha weren't intimately familiar with his weak spots. He raised his voice, and had soon drawn Sid into a conversation about how Zhenya might pine away for sky and earth, entombed in the hostile rock.

Not that a well-appointed workroom with a half-dozen other mages was hostile, by any means, but Seryozha was shameless in his description of the painful deprivations Zhenya was suffering. Sid's eyes became large and he harried Zhenya away from his desk, took the scrapped mechanism he'd been working on right out of his hand and set it on a shelf. 

"It'll wait," he said, breathing worry all over Zhenya like a clinging grey fog. "You go with Gonch. Take as long as you need."

"Not need at all," Zhenya said, but Seryozha sighed ponderously and made concerned faces at Sid, and Zhenya was shooed out, trailing Seryozha up the spiral stair that would lead them to the slopes of the mountain. The silvery glow of the panelled wall made it like climbing through the curve of a seashell.

"It will do you good to see the sun again," Seryozha said. "It doesn't rise in Sidney Crosby's eyes, you know."

"I know that," Zhenya said, nettled. "I'm not a fool, Seryozha."

"Perhaps it would be better if you were."

"You say these things only to sound clever," Zhenya muttered, and Seryozha's amusement washed over him. 

The rock was icy under Zhenya's bare feet when they emerged. Seryozha had no sympathy for him.

"You spend too long in there, if you cannot stand a cool breeze."

"We are on top of a mountain, and you are wearing shoes." Zhenya loped down towards the caravan's pier, glancing down to see it rising through the tunnel of cables. Seryozha had timed Sid's concern and Zhenya's surrender to the minute, it was clear.

From here the caravan would drop again, taking them down to the lap of the mountain, where a sheltered hollow between their own, tallest peak and the next held a farm and a deep pool. It was barely worth taking the caravan that short distance. except the snake of rails and cables at one point curved out over the abyss, so they could pry open the door of their cart and stare down into cloud. Goats bleated insolently from the side of the mountain, and Zhenya called back to them, mimicking their voice well enough that they looked about suspiciously.

It was good to breathe the crackling mountain air and feel the sun on his skin, Zhenya could concede. The air in the inner mountain breathed easily, but had no taste but dust and grease and other people's bodies, and it whirred with the tight clockwork thoughts of studious mages. Here, when he turned his face to the sun and filled his lungs, he could only taste the distant narrow thoughts of hunting birds.

"All right," he said when they stepped off the caravan onto spongy turf, the scent of crushed grass rising about them. "Thank you."

"Two years here, and you've never been down to the farm. You work too hard, Zhenya." 

"Others work far harder."

"They're humans."

Zhenya made a non-committal noise, knowing Seryozha could feel his doubt.

"The pool here is one of the treasures of the mountain, then, if you are so set on giving up every waking moment to study." Seryozha nudged his shoulder and steered him towards the vast expanse of water. "Heaven's mirror, the bowl of fallen stars, the mountain's throat, the duck pond."

"The duck pond?" Zhenya raised his eyebrows. Everything in the mountain had gathered a half-dozen names at least over the ages. Even the caravan had been the shuttle, once, for its way of darting unhindered through the weave of cables, and the sky-road before that. 

"The current custodians are not poets." Seryozha's eyes crinkled a little. "Farming doesn't lend itself well to it, they tell me. Not a wonder, that they churn up the natural order and then call their mess the most tedious of names."

"It doesn't stop you eating the bread and cheese." Zhenya stooped to drag ripples into the surface of the water, trying to remember the last time he'd swum. Perhaps not since he'd left his home. "The water is warm." The rim was worn stone padded with moss; comfortable when he settled down on it. 

"There are pipes," Seryozha said. "They bring hot water from somewhere deep in the mountain. The pool is a half-sphere; if it stays cloudless, we'll see the stars in it tonight as clear as above. Swim if you want, but be careful of the pipe openings."

"Isn't this where they draw water for the city from?" Zhenya asked, even as he stripped off the loose black tunic with the shoulder badge that marked him as one of the mountain's mages.

"They boil it before use. Just don't piss in it." Seryozha was already turning away, some other goal in mind. "There are fish in it, too, and who knows what deep down. I wouldn't concern yourself."

Zhenya's held breath took him down to where the water was dim and cold and he couldn't make out the creatures that brushed around him, but still the gleaming-dark wall curved gently into the deep, and he had to let himself rise again towards the sun. He could spell himself, of course, breathe the water or even take a sleek seal form, but Seryozha would feel it and no doubt tease him for being unable to keep himself from spending magic for even a handful of hours. He floated, instead, on his belly to stare down at the silver flashes in the deep, and then on his back to watch the scudding clouds. He could hear the slow complaints of the wheel-oxen, and the distant bickering of fowl over grain, their small minds urgent with desire. 

The sky was light on his shoulders after the mountain's weight, and he left his clothes and padded naked over the turf. He found Seryozha humming softly back to the beehives, the centre of a golden cloud.

"Tell the bees your news," Seryozha demanded, not lifting his gaze from his double-handful of buzzing life. "You tell them your news, and they build their chambers with the memories. A little part of you remains."

Not like Seryozha, who touched the earth light as a summer breeze, leaving only a ripple in the grass and an emptiness in the heart when he was gone.

"You've spent too long here," Zhenya said, watching the rueful twist to his lips and tasting faint regret in his mood.

"Perhaps," was all Seryozha said, but it was enough to tighten Zhenya's throat. Change was coming, then. "Ksenia and I will have another daughter soon, I think."

"So soon," Zhenya said, relaxing at the good news. Seryozha's smile twisted tighter, the sunlit mood still not clear-skied.

"And then I will have two daughters who have never seen their home, and only know the world made by men. My daughter is already old enough to taste the world on the wind, and wonder."

True enough, that the mountain wasn't a home for them. Even in the first flush of his arrival, Zhenya had dreamt of towering trees and bright cascades, and he'd gone down on his knees and kissed the wet gritty earth. This carved, cornered, _built_ world tripped him up every day, the languages were guttural and alien in his ears, his own words a stutter where they should be a song. Seryozha's eyes were already dark with the shadows of the deep forest, looking past the mountain into the horizon.

"So you'll go home."

"I'm sorry to leave so soon after you arrive," Seryozha said, so true the air chimed with it. "I hope you'll still be able to make a home here." He paused, but Zhenya had no answer for him. "Tell the bees your news."

"The city is more fascinating that I could have predicted, still." Zhenya told the bees, a drowsy hum infusing his words. "It opens up to me a little more each day, like an endless flower." The bee-cloud reached out to him in buzzing tendrils, and soon he could feel the brush of wings and the touch of tiny furred bodies as he let out a stream of disjointed memories; every doorhandle unique as a snowflake, the particular ring of the hallway floors under a boot heel, the sweet tree-sap candy that dissolved on the tongue, the discordant delightful jangle of Sidney's laughter.

You could spend a dozen lifetimes in the mountain, digging deeper into ruin upon ruin, opening up doors to rooms unentered in a thousand years, reading words engraved on the wall by some nameless long-dead stoneworker. But Seryozha would not; he was hungry for other things, and Zhenya couldn't change that.

The city in the mountain had been merely magic, once, a thousand lifetimes ago. But every part of it had been touched by a thousand inquisitive enchanting hands, laying down new spells, glamouring light, embedding wishes, charming with lightness of mood or a restful dream or a bladed trap for the unwary. There were worlds layered up in the most nondescript passageway, if you could only see it, hear it, breathe them in.

"You should rest," James said, jolting him from his focus, and Zhenya grunted. There was a magical form in the tile he held in the hollow of his palm, and he could almost shape it complete in his mind.

It slipped his grasp once again in a spill of enchantment, a soft wash of light bathing them briefly, picking out the line between James' brows. Careless, and Zhenya gritted his teeth. "Really, Zhenya."

He never said it right; the soft sounds coughed in his mouth. Only Seryozha said it right, and he would be leaving soon. Zhenya formed the shape again, watched it shudder and crumble, and hissed in irritation. It was simple, really, but the fine lines blurred under his gaze.

"Zhenya - "

"Shut up, Lazy," he said. "Busy."

Useless. He had achieved little, really, since he came to the mountain. He'd picked out a few snowflakes from the blizzard, and traced their form; nothing, when you considered the vast mysteries that lay beneath their feet. He tapped his nail on the glazed surface of the tile. A metallic glaze, a stone-fired tile, a clay mined far away. Set by one hand in a pattern designed by another. What use was it all, really, endlessly digging out the past, seeking secrets learned and lost a dozen times. An endless struggle, and he could be burying his hands in cool grass and listening to lark-song, and maybe someone more useful could take his place, someone who wouldn't struggle with a simple tile.

But he almost had it, could see it so very close, and he reached once more for it, the muscles around his eyes quivering with the strain of seeing beyond the everyday.

When he next blinked away the fog, Sid was there, flushed and ruffled, like he'd just rolled out of bed. Zhenya cast an accusing glance at James, who looked up at the ceiling with a protruding lower lip.

"Nealsy's worried about you," Sid says. "And now so am I. You haven't slept in four days?"

"Elves don't need sleep."

"They need rest, though." Sid folded his hands around Zhenya's, and pressed them down flat on the worktable until he let the tile slip from his grasp. "I've worked with Gonch for years; and if you argue I'll go and get him and he can tell you himself that you must rest."

"His name is Seryozha," Zhenya said petulantly, and Sid nodded. 

"Come sleep, Zhenya," he said, and he couldn't say it either, his voice nothing but ragged edges with no music at all.

His eyes were soft as leaf mulch though, damp and golden brown, and the determined line of his lips left no doubt in Zhenya's mind that he would make the climb to Seryozha's quarters and bring him down. So he let Sid steer him to one of the narrow bunks in the study room and settle him down, the smell of books a pleasant blanket on him. 

"All right," he said when Sid obligingly pulled a blanket over him. "I'm not a child." 

"Not what Seryozha says." Sid ruffled his hair, and giggled when Zhenya batted him away. Someone grumbled softly, half-asleep, and Sid glanced about, voice dipping low. "Sleep, Zhenya, or whatever you do. Your head will be clearer."

Zhenya tried to find words, and failed, the words stuttering out like a dog's bark. The frown on the caravan leader's face deepened, and whatever he said dripped with raw impatience. Zhenya's cautiously extended awareness sensed snowstorms and hurricanes whipping up his thoughts, and he longed for the words to explain that the oncoming skies would be clear, if cold.

Of course, if he had those words, there would be no delay, as Zhenya could explain he did not want to ride the hideous metal caterpillar.

"Causing trouble?" The words were familiar, alone enough to make Zhenya's heart sing, but the voice was Seryozha's, and Zhenya spun with arms wide to catch his friend up.

"Seryozha," he said, against soft hair that smelled of the forest, still, after so many years away. "I've missed you."

"Idiot boy." Seryozha cupped the back of his neck with his broad palm. "Finally you are here, a year late. I almost gave you up for lost, but the birds carried news of you, so I have stayed here at the foot of the mountain these two weeks."

"You didn't have to," Zhenya protested, and Seryozha squeezed him crushingly tight before letting go.

"It's clear I did, by the frown on our caravan leader's face. What trouble are you making now?"

"Nothing, only I don't have words, to explain that I would rather climb - "

"Oh, you will not." Seryozha took him firmly by the elbow. "It will take you two weeks instead of half a day, if you don't plummet down a crevasse or find an interesting relic or meet some fascinating person. The caravan is an ancient piece of work itself - you will enjoy it." Zhenya dug in his heels, and Seryozha sighed at him. "Mario Lemieux is waiting for you, you know. And Sidney Crosby is very excited to work with you."

"He is?" Zhenya let himself be rocked forward a step, and then another. The caravan leader nodded at him approvingly, as he might at a recalcitrant child. Zhenya surrendered himself to Seryozha's inevitable will, and climbed into the tall, curved cart at the rear, chained to its fellows with metallic ropes he hoped were stronger than their thickness showed. They stretched on past the caravan, curving upwards and eventually escaping even his eyes, lost in the blurred crags of the mountain. "Seryozha, tell me this is safer than it looks."

"It's older than you, me or even Kharlamov. And it's never failed in the time we have records for."

"How does it still work? The power needed - "

"Ah, they cheat on that. The ancient mechanisms that provide endless power, well, they're all very well but few in number. For the most part they use windmills and waterwheels and for the caravan they have a dozen oxen walking a wheel round."

"You're joking." Zhenya looked around, but the caravan clicked like an insect, hard surfaces scrambling against each other for purchase as the caravan jolted upwards, too late to escape. Zhenya gripped the edge of his seat, watching Seryozha look out of the cart as calm as if he were astride a mule.

The sky smeared and smudged, turning to bruised plum and lavender, the evening stars peeping through the ragged pale clouds.

"It was this sky when I arrived," Seryozha said. "I looked behind us as we rose, and I could see the torches lit across the plain as darkness rushed on. It was like a night sky, where each star was a home."

"But not your home," Zhenya said, and didn't look to see the lights of Seryozha's memory. He picked at his armour instead, laying each scale neatly in line with its neighbours. He hadn't put the armour on in months. No need, buried down in the workrooms, where no one who wasn't trusted set foot. He missed it a little; perhaps he should put it back on and follow Seryozha home. The mountain would remain, and he could return one day, though a different mage might sit in the Archmage's quarters, or perhaps the mages would have fallen and a kingdom would rise there. He picked harder at the armour, til his nail split and Seryozha sighed.

"You're a brat, Zhenya."

"I know. Stay a little longer. Your daughters have so long ahead of them - the mountain is not so bad a place to take your first breaths."

"Longer and longer, Zhenya, you will never be glad to see me leave. It won't be forever, you know." He looked out of the cart, which now rode the long path down the spine of the range, the antheaps busy beneath them, studying and building and other such human concerns. "I've left pieces of myself here. They make it easy. You can't tell me you'd leave happily, can you?"

"Happier than staying alone, I think."

"You'd regret it before we'd escaped the mountain's shadow. You have so much to do here, Zhenya."

"I know," Zhenya said, resigned. "You win, then. I'll stay."

"And don't be a fool and work yourself into the ground," he said, and Zhenya groaned. "No, it is enough Sid will no doubt be at my door tomorrow, babbling about your swooning dramatics - look at you, worn to the bone - I don't need him sending messengers all the way to our home to worry me that you're wasting away."

"He wouldn't," Zhenya said, but he couldn't help the crook of his lips, and Seryozha smiled at him.

"I'll miss him," he admitted. "Ridiculous child that he is. Take good care of each other, won't you? Humans say their hearts break, which I do not think ours do, but when the day comes I lose either one of you, I think I might sustain a crack."

Zhenya could only shake his head, and then drop to his knees, pressing his wet eyes and burning cheeks into Seryozha's lap. It would be easier to love a little less; then he wouldn't feel like slivers of his heart were peeled away at parting. 

"Seryozha," he mumbled against the soft fabric, tasting dye and dust and dreams. "I'll miss you."

Zhenya woke with tears gumming his eyes, and when he'd rubbed them away Sid's face appeared over him, scrunched up with worry.

"Am fine," Zhenya said. "Hope you not bother Seryozha."

"Nooo," Sid said unconvincingly. "Come have breakfast with me?"

"It's - " he turned his head, seeking the sun and stars, and sighed. "It's midnight, Sid."

"But you're hungry," Sid said with perfect certainty, because while he couldn't feel the earth turn under his feet, he always knew the state of the bodies around him - probably knew how Zhenya was tender and aching in his heart, a bruise he couldn't cease to press, counting down the hours til Seroyzha and Ksenia and little Nathalie were gone. "We can make pancakes," Sid said, coaxing, as if pancakes could heal anything. Sid clearly gathered this from his huff, and shrugged. "You will feel better, though."

"Fine," Zhenya sighed.

When they had bowls of food - broken and misshapen pancakes, liberally splattered with honey and butter, but hot and satisying - Sid led them upwards, taking burning bites and cursing softly. He took them to the model room, which was in many ways the heart of their purpose in the mountain. 

They sat on the narrow catwalk above the highest peak, the range in miniature still as tall as three men. The city in the mountains was rebuilt in ribbons of metal and glass blown fine as bubbles. Solid cores of recent explorations drilled down from the crowns of each peak, and the great stair piercing the range's heart was built in full. Nibbles, too, around various doors on the slopes, here a grand balcony that faced the dawn, there a spiral stair unravelling from a rocky overhang down into a ravine long flooded. 

This was the first place Sid had shown him, when he was still dazed by the mountain's size, by the bustling hives of people, by Mario Lemieux's colossal presence, by the waterfalls of words he couldn't comprehend, by all of it like the tides yanking him this way and that with only Seryozha as a still point.

Lemieux's protegee was utterly unlike him, as solidly human as any spirit Zhenya had ever met, thoughts of building and creation whirring in his head and spilling out from his mouth, through Seryozha's sluice and into Zhenya. He'd tugged Zhenya all over the the model, pointing out excavations, fingers rippling the shimmering bead curtain that was a waterfall.

So much was blocked from their view; pebbles glued together for fallen rocks or walled-over passages. Tiny models to depict the beasts and beings that still lived in parts of the city, and defended their territory. Small carven spears and a fluff of green-dyed wool; he turned inquiring eyes to Sidney, who mimed stepping on something, then threw up his hands, choked, and collapsed to the floor.

"Traps," Seryozha said dryly as Sid hopped to his feet again. "Various people who have lived in the city have not wanted to share it with others."

The model was familiar to him now, but no less fascinating. Sitting within the mountain, looking down on the mountain, gave Zhenya a feeling of balance. Rocks in cities, cities in rocks, he could pretend each tiny rockfall had new worlds inside it. 

The model room in the tiny mountain was an empty space. Mario had vetoed any attempt to recreate the model _in_ the model. That way lay madness, he claimed, or at least great silliness. 

Sid set down his bowl, and licked his fingers clean of honey. Zhenya watched him, because there was no point in denying himself the pleasure of Sid's solemn intensity or his clever tongue. Then he smiled at Zhenya, and Zhenya smiled back, as always.

"I have an idea," Sid said, and there was a glint in his eye. The sense of mischief wafted from him as perceptibly as the scent of honey. Zhenya narrowed his eyes and Sid giggled. "No, really! Hear me out." He slipped off the edge of the catwalk and swung to the one below before, gesturing to the model. "You see the red stones, the carved garnets?"

"Red for the - for the power, yes? The - " he turned his hands together, trying to mime the complex mechanisms he'd only seen diagrams of. Intricate magic, and smithing far beyond the abilities of even dwarves, nowadays. "Four of them found and made to work."

"Perpetual dynamic cores," Sid said with relish. "I happen to know Iggy's got another three of those garnets carved and ready to go; if we could find more in working order - well, he's got big plans. I want to do that."

Zhenya hummed doubtfully, and Sid pouted at him.

"No, Zhenya, really. I've been studying the conduit patterns, and I'm pretty sure I've got a location narrowed down. Not just one, but two. It has to be - the entire north side of our mountain drew from it, I can show you my diagrams - "

"Okay, Sid," because Sid was probably right, and even if he wasn't, he would ruffle up like a starling and scold about it anyway. "So what?"

"So Mario says I can send down a scouting party, to check, and if we find it we'll make a push to get the area reclaimed." Sid's cheeks were pink with excitement, and no wonder - almost doubling the power at their command would both be a huge benefit for their little community and a feather in Sid's cap.

Zhenya slipped down to stand beside Sid, and followed the line of his pointing arm. He felt the air tremble as Sid reached out, breathed a soft cloud of light, and then a darkened spot in the mountain began to glow. 

"Deep," Zhenya said neutrally, and Sid let out a dissatisfied hum.

"It is, but look - " beads of light spilled upwards, curling. "See, I think we can pick up a staircase here - the top of it's in use, but there was damage partway down, a lot of stairs fell, so it's been gated off. But there's no reason to think it's not usable further down, and if it continues down, and if the shaft is straight, it comes very close to the explorations we did fifteen years ago, see - " he leaned out precariously to point, and Zhenya grabbed his belt.

"If and if," he said, and Sid shrugged. 

"We should be fairly safe to the limits of the old exploration. A short venture from there to where the shaft should be, and if it's not there, or it's inaccessible, we can turn and come back again."

"Will we, though?" and Sid grinned back over his shoulder.

"I promise, I won't go haring off into the dark without a plan. If there's no way through, we'll come back and look at other ways." He rocked back to solid footing, and Zhenya rested his hand on Sid's back, where he could feel the steady pulse of his blood. "If we can follow the staircase down, we'll come very close indeed to where we want to be, and we can see if it's worth the effort."

"Who?"

"Just you and me. Small and fast."

"You not so fast," Zhenya said, patting the solidly muscled curve of his spine, and Sid pouted and elbowed him.

"It's my mission," he said. "So I'm leading it. But I'd rather have you with me than anyone."

"Leading," Zhenya furrowed his brow deeply, and Sid groaned.

"Like you ever do as you're told anyway. Will you come?"

Sid was warm beside him, and Zhenya couldn't look away from the warm tendrils of light, now curling through the wire bones of the mountain like friendly cats. A feather in Zhenya's cap, too, if he helped Sid find them.

"Yes, of course I come."

Lemieux, the master of the Steel City, didn't feel human. He would not have been out of place among the oldest of Zhenay's people, his presence the flash of lightning in stormclouds, his mind as precise and fluid as the long length of his limbs, age and the chill air resting light upon him. His study, the pinnacle of the mountain city, was filled with the thin wild winds of the mountain top, shredding at Zhenya's senses and carrying him snippets of far-off lands, spiced and snowy.

The fine tracery of the stonework was sheathed in metal, icy under Zhenya's fingertips.

"He says there were panes of crystal here once," Seryozha translated, and Lemieux tilted the folio in his hand so Zhenya could see the etching, its colouring faded into subtle tints of grey. It showed the curve of the roof, with intricate designs worked into the windows. With the last rays of sunset sleeting through it, it must have been a living jewel, a dragon's treasure.

Zhenya preferred it hollowed out to the sky. A deep breath, he thought, could bring him a taste of the dense trees of his home. 

He opened his eyes, blinking slowly. Sid was still chattering away with Flower, working on a buckle that had somehow bent out of shape in storage.

" _Somehow_ , Flower, really? And not because you stole it for your playfights?"

"Don't know what you mean," Flower said serenely, and Sid huffed. Zhenya smiled, and unfolded and refolded his legs before letting his eyes drop shut again.

He'd met Sid that first day in Mario's office, face round and rosy in his furred hood. Soft and chubby like a pet bunny, no reluctance or caution in his wide smile as he peeled off his mitten to give Zhenya his hot bare hand.

He darted a swift question at Seryozha when their hands touched, and Seryozha shook his head.

"He insists we must be cold. He'll be trying to make Mario put a hat on, soon, the funniest thing. No dignity, this one."

Sidney wanted to take Zhenya straight to the workrooms, and his excitement sparked an answering enthusiasm in Zhenya, but Seryozha took Sidney's arm in his. 

"Zhenya has not met my Nathalie yet," he said, and Sidney bounced, eyes lighting even brighter, pale like dawn's light. Sidney loved babies; Zhenya let his attention carry him to Seryozha's chambers, to the sight of Sid holding Nathalie close, and felt a light touch on his arm.

"You're quite sure?" Mario said conversationally, the wide sky behind him though Zhenya could still hear Nathalie's delighted giggles. 

"Not know you could do this," Zhenya said, startled into bluntness, and Mario gave him a small, intensely smug smile.

"Not nearly so well as you might, but yes, it can be learned. I'm glad your memories of our first meeting are so fond."

"Was made very welcome."

"And I hope you'll stay with us a long time," Mario said, and Zhenya had nothing to say, there, had spent the night resting in Seroyzha's empty chambers in the hope of capturing a little girl's giggle, the scent of Ksenis'a cooking. The weight of Seryozha's grave attention. Mario let the silence stretch painfully long before speaking again. "And you're sure about this trip? I know Sid can carry people away with his enthusiasm. You don't have to go, you know."

It was Mario, so Zhenya didn't snap at him. He knew the dangers of the deep mountain better than anyone, probably, and so Zhenya thought again of venturing into the darkness, with only his own skills and Sidney's to keep them safe. His mouth curved unbidden in a smile, and Mario laughed softly.

"Yes, I thought so. Safe journey, Zhenya. And bring Sid home safe."

He vanished abruptly, jarring the dream to pieces, and Zhenya was left with a jumble of impressions, of the winds and the baby-warm contentment that was Nathalie. 

"All right, Zhenya?" Sid said, and Zhenya looked up, and smiled. Sid's armour was was ancient metal dug from the ruins; it had the rough signs of reworking by lesser smiths that made it fit smoothly, but it and the padded jerkin beneath still made him slightly ungainly, put a waddle into his walk. Zhenya laughed at him, and Sid just wrinkled his nose.

"You look like a hummingbird," was his verdict on Zhenya's scaled armour, the dark scallops shimmering blue and green like the feathers of a raven, thank you. Sanja, now, Sanja's armour was a hummingbird, and one day Zhenya would insist on Sid seeing it just to watch his incredulously pursed mouth struggle with politenesses.

They didn't carry much; water could be gathered on their way, and the least amount of food they could manage on. If they needed more, well, there were sources on their way, though Sid's nose wrinkled as he detailed fungi and scuttling creatures they could eat. Paper, of course, and a small bottle of ink and a pen for each of them. Sid had sword and dagger at his hips, and a shield the size of his torso; Zhenya bow and long dagger. A set of picks, which Sid assured Zhenya he knew how to use though Zhenya doubted his fingers had the necessary delicacy. Various small tools and instruments for Sid to take measurements.

"Done, Sid," he said as Sid checked them over for the fourth time, and Sid sighed and strapped the bag in place before picking up his jar of luminous beetles, which would light their path.

"You'll like it," he promised, and Zhenya believed him.

The head of the Great Stair was held by a fortress built a few centuries ago, rebuilt from the ruins fifty years ago under Archmage Gretzky's direction. Sid was welcomed cordially, and Zhenya politely.

The Great Stair struck from the shoulder of the tallest peak down the centre of the range. Its length hadn't been measured in centuries, perhaps millenia - the oldest written records said the foot of the stair was lost. There was a song Seryozha knew, and could sometimes be coaxed to sing, that had the stair reach down to a Great Hall in the mountain's root, walled with veins of silver and gold, floored with a loose shale of uncut gems. The archmage would consult with the booming soul of the earth there, with fiery spirits of the underground and strange great beasts entombed in the rock.

It made Zhenya's eyes hurt to stare down into the dimness, the patchy glimmer of luminous mosses smearing like the lights that appeared when he pressed on his closed eyelids. 

"I always forget," Sid said beside him. "It's too big to fit in the memory. You see it on the maps and models and you think you understand, but - "

"Too big," Zhenya agreed. It was the scale of great rivers; to see it built thing - built by men whose lives could span out time and again before such a work could take shape - it was the implacable creation of an antheap, and it made Zhenya shiver with fear and desire.

He took his first step - the steps low, broad steps, as if space were no consideration, as if it were a short drop. The engraving on the metal was worn down completely, only traces of it clinging at the very edges.

"There's more of it further down," Sid said, correctly interpreting his glance. "But the head of the staircase has never really been out of use that we know of - even before the mages reclaimed it, hunters and looters and explorers were always in and out."

Zhenya could take the stairs two at a time with only a little stretch of his legs; his steps rang in rhythm with Sid's but the distance between them grew, Zhenya unable to resist the call of _one more step_. The first landing shocked him when his stepping foot met level ground, and he blinked and circled, looking about the broad flat space, the size of the hall they gathered in for dinner, the walls climbing to arches and vaults. He couldn't make out the embossed symbols where the ribs met. The landing spread through great arches to either side, leading down shadowed hallways.

He looked back up the stairway, where Sid plodded a little more than halfway down the flight, a tiny smear of darkness against the lustre of the staircase, shadow on gold. From here, the head of the stair was impossibly bright, and he had to look away after a second, blinking back to the dimness.

In the ancient times, of course, there would be enough light to fill the whole vast cavern; you could walk the whole stair and cast sharp-edged shadows from head to foot.

"Hi the magus," a voice called from behind him, and he spun, ready to run; but the figure was wearing the shoulder badge of a mage, and his hands were empty. "Relax, friend, I'm the watchman for the north wing party."

"Not know," Zhenya said, language deserting him as he tried to remember anything about the north wing. "Ah - Sidney Crosby." He jerked his head up the stairs, and the stranger glanced up and nodded. 

"We've seen nothing from below in months; quiet as moonless night."

"Good?" Zhenya tried, and wished Sid would hurry. They stumbled through a conversation about the north wing projects - rune translations, which would in a generation or so make certain projects much simpler. Finally Sid bounded the last few steps and greeted the stranger enthusiastically, words flowing too quickly for Zhenya to follow for a minute or two. They chattered back and forth for several minutes before clasping hands and parting. Zhenya had barely taken two steps before Sid's hand on his arm caught him back.

"Oh no," Sid said firmly. "We stay together now, even if it is quiet. The north wing's the last permanent outpost, and that means anything could be down here."

"Move fast, you say," Zhenya teased, and Sid just grinned back at him.

"We'll come off at the next landing," he said. "There's a waystation set up not far off; if it hasn't been rifled we'll sleep soft. Then we'll be ready to strike out north towards the staircase."

Keeping his longer legs to Sid's stride was not as frustrating as it could have been. His voice was unmusical but no hardship to listen to, and he listened very intently to Zhenya even when the words came slow and awkward, all his attention on Zhenya like a flower turned to the sun.

When they reached the next landing, Sid groaned and bent double, touching his fingers to the floor and stretching out his legs.

"Aren't your legs even a little sore?" his voice came muffled, and Zhenya was severely tempted to push him over and let him rattle down a few stairs. He might roll all the way to the next landing, though, so Zhenya contained his mischief and helped his upright again.

"Is okay, Sid, can't help being human." He stepped neatly back from Sid's jabbing elbow. "Where we rest, then? You must need nap after such long walk, hm?"

"I should have brought Flower," Sid said, turning off the stair, and Zhenya hummed, knowing Sid would feel his scepticism.

"Flower never tease you ever."

"Exactly, he respects me." Sid couldn't say that with a straight face, stopping to giggle to himself, and Zhenya bumped his hip into Sid's to chivvy him along. "Ugh, don't. My legs might fall off and then you'll have to carry me back."

"Tell them bear eat you," Zhenya suggested, and the squabble about the likelihood of bears so deep in the mountain took them down a long corridor and onto a narrow gallery with no railing, girdling a room shaped like a half-circle. The flat wall had some large structure bulking out of it, and Zhenya dropped down to investigate, followed less gracefully by Sid.

"What is it?" Zhenya resisted the urge to pull the tempting levers, all shining and well-kept. The leather padding was worn but still intact but for occasional patches; whatever this machine was, someone invested their time in it.

"It's a forge," Sid said. "Or an oven, depending. We send the occasional party down when we have things that need a _really_ high temperature. This gets hotter than any of our own forges, by a long way. Stop fiddling, Zhenya."

"What this?" Zhenya couldn't resist the smooth brassy surfaces, the black needles so fine and strong on enamelled dials.

"Those tell you the temperature inside, and these are to control - Zhenya, stop it," he took Zhenya's hands firmly in his. "People use this, you know."

"You say come down - "

"Not just us. People do still live in the mountain, and some of them come here to forge weapons, sometimes."

"Didn't realise they could do that." He'd gained the impression the bands of men that roamed the mountain were little more than bandits, leaving lean on whatever weird creatures they could hunt, sometimes coming out to forage on the mountainside. More a nuisance that a danger, because they damaged precious and fragile devices and burned anything for fuel.

"Depends. Some just scavenge, but there are some who are quite well established - they say there are whole towns, on the deep-down levels, where they've found old underground farms. Of course they say a lot of things, and barely any of it true. It's not really my area, you'd have to talk to someone like Patrice. If you're interested - "

"Not really."

"Well, you mostly don't need to know," Sid said agreeably. "Anyway, leave it alone; I want to get some sleep without worrying about burning to death.

The gallery on the flat wall was wider, and there was a deep cubby over the forge itself. As Sid had hoped, there was a mattress stuffed with wool, and a bundle of blankets. There was a small pail of withered apples, too, and Sid ate three, explaining quite reasonably that they would be inedible soon anyway. Zhenya stuck to biscuits softened with water, and a little of the fresh wet cheese made from the milk of mountain goats. Old apples always tasted of decay to him.

Sid moved in his sleep, restless little kicks of his feet, opening and closing hands. Zhenya tried to soothe him at first, but while he turned his face to butt against Zhenya's hand on his cheek, no stillness came. It was probably normal, Zhenya decided finally, because he couldn't sense any distress, only the muddle of dreaming thoughts like a lapping tide. He lay flat on his back, one arm slung over Sid's broad shoulders, and let his mind wander. The sleepy flutter of Sid, the colossal warren of the mountain around, above, below, stuffed with whirling clockwork and twisting veins of magic. The misty mirrored future, showing him broken images of a hundred paths; and the deep past coaxing him back into its bosom.

He was remembering Jeffrey's birth, the blood sticky on his hands as the bitch panted and licked him and snarled at him and licked him, pain and apology, and his hand was hot and sticky against Sid's neck. Sid had pressed closer in his sleep, pulled the blankets more tightly around them, and Zhenya thought it must be what fever was like; furnace heat and sticky skin and his heart drumming. Sid blinked his eyes open, gummed with sleep, and slicked his lips with his tongue before croaking out words.

"The forge is on."

Zhenya's armour was light and flexible enough to sleep in, but Sid had to be fitted back into his; Flower had shown him the buckles, the major joints, explaining it wasn't complicated but far easier and quicker with two. Funnier to watch Sid squirm and struggle, but if you were in a hurry, best help him out.

Sid settled his tunic carefully over the top, arranged it so the mage's badge was very visible. They both put up their cowls, and stepped as lightly as possible, surrounded by flickering glare and shadows. Easy enough to mistake two dark hooded figures for shadows, perhaps.

Passing directly over the forge was like a vicious slap to the lungs. Zhenya's mouth and eyes dried painfully in an instant, and he longed to leap off, over the forge and down where it might be cooler. 

"Slow," Sid rasped. They walked slow and empty handed along the flat wall, and then turned to the curve of the half moon, and Zhenya could see the room was crowded, a cluster around the forge itself, and a scatter of others, playing dice and conversing, and a few sleeping. No barrier between them, and there were bows down there. Sid was barely halfway to the door, Zhenya hard on his heels, when a soft murmur rose, and Zhenya prickled with eyes upon him.

Sid very deliberately folded his hands into his sleeves, and then shook his cowl back, the reddish light flickering over his distinctive profile and dandelion clock of hair, and the tension of the room simmered lower.

Sid opened the door and they slipped through, and the noise behind them rose as Zhenya shut the door.

"First time I've been caught there," Sid said, walking fast. "Kladno, I think; their leader worked with the mages, for a while. It would be unpleasant to have to fight him, let alone with a band of his warriors."

"You see him there?"

"I didn't look." Sid stopped, and glanced around. "What time is it?"

"Almost dawn, I think."

"We'll press on, then."

The day's journey was swift and uneventful; only that Zhenya kept being drawn by tempting passages, by discarded scraps, by engraved walls. Sid had to bodily draw him on, take his broken toys from his hands, promise him they could come another day, that every step of the mountain was as fascinating, as ornate, as full of years.

"I hear something," Zhenya said as they paused in a domed room with a dozen radiating passages, and Sid looked up from his sketched map to give him a stern look.

" _Really_ ," he said, with a scepticism Zhenya felt was unfair.

"No, Sid, listen. Scratching, little sounds. Little clicks." Sid's mouth turned down and he moved closer, into Zhenya's shadow, and cocked his head as if he could will his ears as sharp as Zhenya's. He smelled of sweat, stale and fresh, but Zhenya didn't step away.

"I think we should hurry," Sid said finally, and Zhenya raised his eyebrows. "I don't hear anything, but I'd rather be away from whatever it is."

"Hurry, hurry," Zhenya said lightly. "Just trying to keep me from look at things."

Sid could get up a respectable jog in his armour, but Zhenya loped along at his side and teased him about short legs anyway. It cleared the slight frown from Sid's face, until they came to a blockage in the corridor, broken ancient furniture and thick piles of creeper woven around it. Nothing, really, but Sid huffed in a breath of alarm. 

"If something's even trying to block off areas..."

"We should turn back?" Zhenya said, hearing the reluctance clear in his own voice. They were only a few hours walk to the stair shaft now, and to come back empty-handed with only a tale of piled furniture would be - well, it would be nothing.

They looked at each other, and Zhenya felt Sid make up his mind to go on. But then the scrape of claws on stone sounded shockingly close, easily audible to Sid. Zhenya unslung his bow and bounded for a vantage point, a narrow ledge barely enough to hold him. His awareness spread out like ripples from a stone, bring him Sid's tense calm as he shrugged his shield from his shoulder, the fleeting alarm of rats, the growing presence of hunger-malice-rage.

The things that poured around the corner were dark, skittering multi-legged things that rose as high as Sid's knee, and Zhenya had no idea what they were. His first arrow glanced off a dim craggy carapace. He touched the next arrow tip to his tongue, breathed cloying fire onto it, and loosed it at a joint in the armour. That one struck home, but while the creature reared and shrieked, it kept moving, rattling over the floor like a large and vile clockwork toy.

Sid had bolted, turned left down a narrow passage, and Zhenya could only watch and send ineffectual arrows as the dark mass slithered past him. He spat pain and fear and acid onto his arrow heads before finding a wish of deafblindness sent them spinning in furious loops, clawing at their comrades and their own bodies. Not enough, though, because there were dozens already in pursuit of Sid, and Zhenya could barely hear his heavy footsteps now.

He gave chase as soon as he could set foot to floor safely, unsure of what to do. 

Magic was rising, ahead, Sid was using his short lead to cast something. Zhenya could taste it sharp and acrid in his throat.

The hall he entered was heavily vaulted, clusters of slim pillars rising like forest glades; Zhenya was briefly disoriented, only able to find Sid by the taste of his power. The beasts were weaving confused, and Zhenya could add to that, dull their senses and send them squalling and sightless as he sought a path to Sid that would keep him clear of claws.

Steam rose from somewhere, blasts of hot air that left a warm slick over everything, and Zhenya realised they weren't pillars but pipes, passing between a lattice of narrow walkways, uncertain footing that slowed the beasts' advance as their sticklike legs slipped into gaps and stuck in cracks. Zhenya could leap them easily enough, but he could feel Sid's weight vibrating them with impact, and as dark chittering heads swung in that direction, the animals could too.

They all rushed towards Sid, claws and boots skidding on the wet surface. Zhenya could climb the pipes with Sid clinging to his back, perhaps, and then they would have time to calculate - Sid must have an idea what these beasts were, how to deal with them.

"Zhenya!" Sid's voice floated back, steady even as his thoughts roiled with fear and resolve. "Catch!"

Not with his hands, he realised just in time, and as the leading edge of the spell washed over him, he gathered it in, inspected it, and then threw it back, letting Sid gather it like a great net. Zhenya could see him now, arms spread for balance, not sparing a glance for the claws that reached for him even as he tangled them and sent them tumbling and skidding. Zhenya would not have dared to turn his back to the oncoming rage, but Sid moved smooth and fearless as the squalling mass slid within yards of him, not raising his eyes from what Zhenya could now identify as a second spell before him.

Sid's boots skidded in a puddle, but even as he crashed to one knee and then the other, he held the shape of the enchantment solid, body curving and twisting so his hands could cradle the magic. It set off a great dazzling burst even as Sid skidded towards the edge of the walkway.

Sparkling after-images filled Zhenya's sight as he vaulted, blind, to where he'd seen Sid, trusting that the enemies had been struck down. He heard the ring of metal on metal, the clatter of Sid going over the edge, and a high pitched screech - Sid's gauntlets digging against softer metal, the weight of his body and his armour depending from the fingertips Zhenya found with his own hand. 

"Got you," he stuttered, blinking aside the dazzle, fumbling to secure his grip on Sid's hand, his own balance woefully unsure on the edge now wet with blood and other fluids from the bodies behind them, blotting the pale face that came into view, cradled in helmet and gorget.

"No you don't," Sid said, voice steady for all its high pitch, and Zhenya tried to find solid purchase with feet and with hands, to be a bridge for Sid. "It's okay. Go back. I'll meet you back at home."

That rang with lies, and Zhenya let out a harsh desperate noise when Sid's grip weakened, and Sid's bloody vambrace slid from his grasp. He stretched out with arm and mind, following the whirl of Sid's thoughts, the burn of fear and the whirl of desperate calculation, the turning half-formed spells, the sharp slices of memories, faces Zhenya knew and faces he didn't, and Zhenya's own face, seen through the softening veil of deep affection, before a sudden explosion of shock and hope and _cold_ and Zhenya snapped back to himself, alone on his knees surrounded by death. He reached again for Sid, but he was too far, or - not there.

Maybe he'd already given too much of his soul to Sid; it was a hard thing, to find someone so fitted to you, and hold back from them. 

Cold, at the end - Zhenya had never felt a mind die before. Was death cold yet hopeful? What was beneath them, that Sid might feel hope at seeing?

A soft landing, somehow? Snow in the mountain?

Water, of course, if Sid had time to see the water he might be able to dive into it without harm, but with his armour on him he'd as well have dropped wearing his own coffin. 

_Easier with help_ Flower's voice said so clearly Zhenya half-expected him to be there, and because Zhenya was a fool who gave away his soul on a whim, he plunged off the edge like a swallow, as if he were leaping off a tree branch into a deep pool, the waterfalls scattering jewels and the birds singing their hearts out with no care for anything else.

He'd taken longer dives into colder water, but none so ill-advised. He had time to wonder what Seryozha would say if neither he nor Sid ever returned, if his heart would crack and how he would tell, and then he cut into the water and felt the dimming precious light of Sid's determination, and plunged towards it, feet kicking. 

Sid had his hands bare, but they were fumbling weak and cold at the buckles under his arm, underwater currents tumbling him about the smooth tiles of the pool's bottom. Zhenya shut his eyes, better to put all his awareness into his fingertips. Once the cuirass and gorget unbuckled, he could tear the whole thing over Sid's head and then strip him out of the padded jerkin that was weighted with water.

That was enough to let him drag Sid to the surface, but he was limp in Zhenya's arms, face alarmingly pale. Zhenya could still feel the flicker of life within him, and let it comfort him as he struck out for the rim of the pool, not too far. 

He levered Sid only partway out of the pool before thumping at his back and chest, cursing him in his own tongue and the few foul words James had taught him. 

Sid choked and spat water, finally, and clawed his way out of the pool and threw up quite a lot more, groaning. Zhenya followed, resting his hands on Sid's back more for his own comfort than Sid's, reassuring himself that Sid's heart beat and his lungs heaved.

"That was stupid," Sid said, water still running from his mouth, and Zhenya laughed, because Sid was always Sid, even at a time like this. "Sorry. Thank you. It was stupid, though, I - " he sat up, and curled his pale chilled fingers in Zhenya's soaking sleeve. "Thank you. Why - Sorry." He swayed against Zhenya and pressed his face against Zhenya's shoulder, closer that he'd ever come to Zhenya. His breath was hot.

"Not the same at steel city without you," Zhenya said. He hesitated, and admitted "I not same without you, either."

"Really?" Sid pulled back to stare at him. "But it's only been..."

"Long enough."

"Oh," Sid's mouth curled into a small, pleased smile, and then his teeth began to chatter. "Um, I guess everything's wet, right?"

"Take off rest of clothes," Zhenya said, rising to peel off his own armour. "I make fire."

There was nothing he could see as any kind of fuel in the chamber - it was filled almost entirely by the pool, which sent channels through doorways and shivered with underwater currents. Zhenya had to make a fire from magic, which flickered gold and amethyst and drained his energy so that he could only flop next to Sid and lean against him. The cold wouldn't kill Zhenya, but it might kill Sid. They were more fragile, humans.

Sid slipped an arm around him and tugged until they were skin to skin from shoulder to hip to knee. He was still smiling, as if being stuck naked and freezing in an unknown part of the mountain was a mere inconvenience when set against Zhenya's affection for him. Zhenya didn't feel it was his responsibility to convince Sid otherwise; he just let his head settle on Sid's shoulder and soaked up the warmth that was being fuelled by his own body.

"I wish I could do that," Sid said to the top of his head, and Zhenya grunted. He could feel Sid meddling with the fire, with the magic, an oddly pleasant sensation. "I think I can get our clothes dry."

Zhenya made a vague gesture Sid took as assent, and then curled his hand around Sid's waist as he murmured to the magic, alternately scolding and coaxing it. Sid was warming up, from the fire and from his own magic flowing through him, and he was very comfortable to touch.

"Zhenya, wake up," Sid said, and Zhenya groaned and clung tighter. "If you don't wake up I'll squash that fire myself, and it'll hurt."

"Don't," Zhenya mumbled, and snuffed the fire before Sid could meddle further. "What you do?"

"You can't keep it burning off yourself like that for long," Sid said, ruffling his hair - his dry hair, he realised, he must have been asleep hours. Sid was probably right, though of course Zhenya wouldn't tell him so. He sat up, instead, and stretched out. 

"So where are we?"

"I don't know," Sid admitted. "If we can find any kind of ventilation shaft I can probably figure out a direction to the outside. Or if this level is patterned like the upper levels - but we know as the mountain gets wider, the layout changes. We don't know how much. We must have fallen at least five levels. Maybe more."

"Have to explore, then." Zhenya nudged Sid with his shoulder before crawling to his clothes, which were both dry and warm - whatever Sid had done had worked. He gave Sid his tunic, as he only had shirt and breeches left; he'd have offered his boots, but Sid's feet would have barely fitted. 

Fortunately Zhenya had fresh bowstrings wrapped in oilskin, or they would have been left with only one dagger between them. Sid pursed his lips when Zhenya gave it to him, and he could feel the objections trembling on Sid's tongue, but he stayed silent, and they set out to explore.

The vast still pool overflowed to the - to the north? It felt like the north to Zhenya. The water poured with soft music over low broad steps of some pale stone that gathered the light to it. Zhenya stepped down into a narrow hall, and then out into a vaulted circular chamber where water flowed from two other directions, and away down a deepening channel, the currently tugging lightly at them.

"What is this?" he murmured.

"I can't understand you if you talk like that," Sid said crabbily.

"Your tongue doesn't have the right words for a place like this," Zhenya put on his loftiest tone, but Sid's grin suggested he wasn't fooled. Zhenya had never been a wordsmith even in his own speech. "It's strange."

"Pretty," Sid agreed. "Is that steam?" He waded to one of the other tributaries. "Zhenya, this water's warm."

"Could have used warmer water," Zhenya said. "Strange, though." 

"We don't really have time to investigate," Sid said, turning away, and Zhenya put a hand on his shoulder.

"Lot of water to make warm, Sid."

"So?"

"Whatever make it warm, this long - "

"You think it might be the power sources?" Sid's face lit up. "We were close, weren't we, and we fell straight down - yes, we - " his face sobered a little. "But we have to find our way back, that's our first priority."

"We find them, we know where we are, find spiral stair," Zhenya said, and Sid bounced on his heels.

"I'm really glad I brought you," Sid said, and grabbed Zhenya's hand to lead him against the current. Zhenya folded his fingers into the spaces of Sid's, and tapped his thumb against the fragile skin of his wrist, where his pulse was strong.

"Glad I came too."

There was another pool just like the one they'd landed in, and this one was body-warm and lit by a rosy glow. More importantly, magic rose from it like steam, so strong it sparkled at the edge of Zhenya's visions. 

"We could dive and look," Sid said hopefully, and Zhenya shook his head.

"Could be dangerous, Sid. Walk round pool?"

Sid consented to that, grudgingly, and Zhenya prudently kept hold of his hand, in case he dove off the edge in an excess of enthusiasm. There were more pipes rising out of the water, though who knew if they were taking water away or delivering it. Perhaps some of them connected to the great round pool at the farm.

"There's more than one," Sid said. "I'm pretty sure there's three. And they're working, Zhenya, they're still active, this is amazing. More than we could have hoped for." Zhenya had never seen one of the mechanisms they were looking for, but he could follow Sid's awareness into the pool, feel the tight coils of ruby power. Three, as Sid said, and that was - 

"The pool we came to first," Zhenya said. "It - "

"It must have had them - maybe still has them, just not working - and there were three corridors, Zhenya, this is amazing. We _have_ to get back now, this will change everything. The things we could do - " Sid kept opening and shutting his mouth, but no sound came out, and Zhenya could only feel a sort of paralysed ecstasy from him.

"Calm down, Sid," and he poked Sid firmly in the belly, getting a sharp huff of indignation.

"I don't think you understand - "

"Plenty of time you explain when we back home."

Some of the glitter went out of Sid's eyes, then, and he looked around. 

"But if there are three of them, I'm not sure which one we can navigate to the staircase from. We'll have to follow the fourth channel, I suppose. Unless you could climb the pipes?"

"Not carrying you, all the way."

"You could - "

"Not going without you, either." He glared down Sid's mulish pout; he hadn't leapt down into the darkness after Sid to leave him there. Sid sighed, and turned back the way they'd come.

The fourth channel was deep and fast, trying to pull them off-balance. Other channels fed it, cold water all, and Zhenya wondered if this were some waste channel, and they'd eventually empty out in a great waterfall. He kept that worry private, as Sid seemed content enough, inspecting the engravings on the walls, crouching to inspect some underwater glow. It threw shadows on his face that made his nose look vast and pointed, and Zhenya turned away to hide his grin. His eye caught something out of place, jammed in the mouth of one of the small channels.

"Bone," he said, and Sid splashed instantly to his side. 

"It's too dark for bone," he said, and Zhenya shook his head. It looked like something carven, but it felt like bone. He stretched up the narrow channel and hooked it toward him with his bow.

Sid took a step back from it; a fist-sized chunk, and now obviously a vertebrae, black as the stifling space under the blankets where you hide from monsters as a child. Fear was already closing Zhenya's throat even from this dead remnant.

"Dragon," he said, and Sid's eyebrows arched.

"You're sure?"

"You don't forget."

Startlingly, Sid broke into a smile, and he waded forward to peer deeper into the channel.

"I think I see a claw," he reported.

"Leave it be, Sid, we don't have time now."

"You don't understand, Zhenya. This is excellent news. This channel has to pass through the dragon's grave, and I know where that is."

"I not pass through a dragon's grave," Zhenya blurted. "Die in the mountain first."

"No, it's not - dragons attacked the mountain, once, and they failed, but their bodies were left to rot because no one would touch them. There's a big plateau, where the crust of the mountain was broken through. We can cross it in a day, and I think we can pick up one of the outer stairways and follow it up to the spine caravan."

"Think?"

"If it's in good condition. If it's not been overgrown, if it's not infested with wolves." His smile hitched a little wider. "I think it will be fine."

"Corpses still there?"

"Well, bones now, obviously." Sid nodded to the dark chunk in the water, the pale stone dimmed by its shadow. "Zhenya, if we're beneath the dragon's grave, we're a long way down. Trying to go all the way up through the inner mountain - "

"I know," Zhenya said, resigned. Bare bones, exposed to the sky for many years - so many Zhenya hadn't tasted their malice on the air even once. 

The channel narrowed even further, deepening the water so it lapped up to Zhenya's chest. Sid was soaked through and philosophical about it; Zhenya could sense fever and magic sizzling in his body. 

Sid hopped up out of the water, and Zhenya waded after him; he'd found a dry bed, no doubt blocked somewhere further up the mountain. A few steps up and the air was barely damp.

"Rest here," he said, and Sid looked up at him, brows drawn down.

"You can't be tired, surely."

"You need rest."

"You just don't want to reach the dragons."

"Sid human, need sleep. Get sick."

He lay awake for some indeterminate time, Sid breathing a little raspy against his shoulder. It was too easy, though, to let his mind wander into bright images, follow the dreaming scent of blossom, and then he was walking the thin narrow path, trailing the fingers of his right hand against the polished surface of the cliff. To his left, across the abyss, he knew he was watched by a dozen or so dwarves, some perhaps with their bows sighted on him, just to keep their hands in. The dwarves guarded this, their greatest treasure, with a greedy fervour.

He felt it long before he saw it, the sunlight weakening, the air turning stale in his lungs. 

The path seemed insubstantial, the drop endless. Shutting his eyes only made it worse, the sensation of tumbling so real he gasped aloud.

He looked to his left, and could just barely make out movement behind the slit windows. 

This wasn't real, he reminded himself, and when he concentrated he could almost feel the weight of Sid's arm slung across his waist, but the poisoned memory dragged him on, whipping comfort away like a vicious wind.

The dragon's eyes were half-shut, weighed down with the centuries, but its hate was as fresh and vital as a new leaf. Zhenya burned with the force of that hatred beating against his skin. The dwarves were largely immune to it, their senses rooted deep in the earth and rocks around them, or they would have been unable to spend hour after hour in the dim cavern with their quills scratching away.

The dragon's wings were spread out and bound in place, the back half of its body still trapped under a colossal cave-in. The dwarves had dug it only partially free, wise enough to disbelieve any promises or entreaties it made.

Its lambent yellow gaze turned on him as soon as the door swung open. They pinned him in place, and his knees turned liquid and his throat filled with a scream. 

A dwarf took his elbow and led him to a chair, talking in soft reassurance about the effect the dragon had, how elves were particularly subject to their influence. 

"Too connected," she rumbled, her eyes soft and dark in her crinkled face. "Dragons, elves, all light on the air and breathing it - like poison to you. You'll adjust."

"Thank," Zhenya said, because the dwarven tongue was like grinding rocks and he couldn't make the words properly. 

"It won't last," she said, and he nodded. "Just breathe."

Zhenya didn't regret seeing the dragon - regrets were not something common among his people. _Now_ was where the interest was, the eternal moment, and the blackening breath of the dragon was locked back in his deeper dreams, never permitted out. When he woke, his mouth tasted bitter-ash and Sid was looking at him with sleepy, curious eyes.

"You were breathing fast," he said. "I've never heard you do that before."

"Almost dawn," Zhenya said. "We go, then, as much daylight as possible."

Perhaps that was why the rats in the mountain were so large and vile - they'd picked the dragons' bones once, a thousand generations ago. They scuttled in the water that washed them clean. The channel they were ankle deep in had been black with blood and scales once, clogged with whatever vileness lay in a dragon's belly.

Zhenya stooped and vomited, black bile, and Sid's warm hands were straight away smoothing his hair back from his face.

"Zhenya? What's wrong?"

"Scared of dragon," he managed, and his voice sounded jagged and alien in his own ears. He rested his hands on his knees, bracing them to stop the shakes.

Sid went to his knees in the water, hands tipping Zhenya's face up towards him. His eyes were big.

"We can go back," he said - lied, because death lay in the mountain, as poorly supplied as they were.

"We go on," Zhenya said, resigned.

The last few feet of the channel were clogged with weeds and creepers, and they had to struggle through. Zhenya brushed beetles from his hair, listening to Sid grumble and squeak, and then they were out in the fresh winds, splashing through a shallow pool, a cascade to their left. 

"Up that way will be the plateau," Sid said. "We can look for an easier way, or you can boost me up."

"Hurry," Zhenya said, and leaned his shoulder into the pouring water to brace himself for Sid to climb him. At least he wasn't still armoured, but he was astonishingly weighty, his booted feet digging bruises into Zhenya's thighs and then shoulders. Sid vanished above him, then stretched his arm back down; Zhenya caught hold and swung himself up, Sid's arm steady as the bough of a tree.

It was still dim and grey, and Zhenya could see nothing ahead of them. The silence was heavy, here, even the falling water muted and dull. 

"Hurry," Zhenya said again, and splashed forward onto the bare rock, dark and cracked. He heard Sid follow, feet stumbling on the rough surface, and he quickened his pace, ignoring the grumbles.

The greyness paled gradually, and Zhenya found his steps faltering, unwilling to face what was ahead. Or, perhaps, what was already around him; he turned in a circle, trying to pick out darker patches. Rocks, or giant carcasses? 

"Zhenya?" Sid's voice whined unpleasantly in his ears. "Come on, please."

Sunlight faltered through the heavy clouds in time to turn a rock into a vast skull, and Zhenya turned his eyes down, watched his feet pace. Five dragons had died laying open the guts of the mountain; their bones were gleaming and blackened and radiating a wildness, a foulness that set Zhenya's heart stuttering. Sid set his mouth and took Zhenya's hand in his, their living flesh pressed together a comfort.

"It's huge," Sid said, and his footsteps drifted towards it.

"Hurry," Zhenya barked, and clenched his hand around Sid's so tight he squeaked.

"Zhenya - "

"Shut up," he said, and Sid went quiet.

The small bones were so frequent here he couldn't give them the wide berth they required; a claw like a scythe blade radiated pain at him, and he shut his eyes and tried not to hear the crunch of tiny rat bones beneath his feet. He could navigate by the bones, by the feel of them pressing against his skin, as if the dragons were looming over him with bared teeth, waiting for their moment.

He thought of other things, other times - not the yellowed lamps shining from the dark cave, the sour breath, but a path of wet turf, the fine veil of mist rising from the dew. Oksana's heavy blond hair; but she looked at him and shook her head, and whispered _draco_ before fading. 

He could feel the dragon's shadow even here, the grass withering under his feet, the fresh green scent turning to sweet rot; the tall trees dropped their leaves in one great shudder and stretched their black limbs to the darkening sky.

Pale membranous wings, like a bat's, spidered with veins. They'd catch the wind and curve, and the air they cupped would be foul, would form treacherous eddies that would dash down skylarks and blow down towers.

"Zhenya," Sid said, and his fingers were warm and calloused. The world wavered before Zhenya's eyes, Sid's hand and the soft ground and the black smoke of dragon-fire. "Zhenya, please listen to me."

 _Zhenya_ sounded strange from his lips, as always, but his hands were solid and strong even in Zhenya's crushing grip. He smelled like sweat and dank water and wet leather, unpleasant and real. Zhenya breathed him in, rocked forward and pressed his face into the muscled curve of Sid's neck, his pulse a steady beat. 

"I can't," he said, voice small and beaten, and Sid murmured something soft and incomprehensible and pulled on their joined hands. The warmth of his hand crept up Zhenya's arm like ivy throwing itself around a tree, but instead of sapping it poured life into him, his very bones humming with Sid's touch.

If he didn't move, he'd have to stay, chased down the paths of his dreams by the terrible ghosts. The skies of all his memories filled with wings, waiting for him to close his eyes. He could barely feel his feet when he got them under him, and the world swayed distressingly around him even when he opened his eyes.

He looked at the great black skull, and felt it looking back from the empty hollows, a vast dark malice in it. 

"They never die, I think," he said, his voice wet and raw, and Sid shivered. 

"That's so terrible." He pulled Zhenya on a step, and though his knees threatened to give way, he made another and another, placing his feet where Sid had stepped, capturing the faint traces of his warmth. "Come on. Not long, now."

"Don't let go," Zhenya said, unwilling, but Sid just looked pink and pleased, and squeezed his hand. Ridiculous, Seryozha had called him, and it was true, but his wide toothy smile cut through the sour fog of hate. Zhenya wanted nothing more than to press his mouth to Sid's skin, make him giggle his raucous giggle, feel him squirm and shudder. A foolish indulgence of a human, who'd guard him so thoroughly from the bitter tastes of sadness and regret.

They stumbled on and upward, the curve of the rock rising into a stair, edges rounded by time and the rain but still solid underfoot. The cloud lightened in gradual stages, as if dawn had come late, to strip the shadows from him. By the time they were on the stair, narrow and broken, but _there_ , he felt alive again, like a skin-shed lizard, bright and new. 

"Sorry," he said, and Sid squeezed his hand tight.

"It's all right," he said with bright confidence, and Zhenya - Zhenya believed him. He took the stairs faster, stepped on Sid's heels and used his height to crowd him against the cool cliff of the mountain.

"Pretty Sid," he said in his own language, and Sid blushed anyway, no doubt catching his meaning from the smile Zhenya could feel stretching his face.

"Not here," but Sid tipped his head back invitingly, exposing the line of his throat and the curve of his collarbones, the hinge of his jaw, and Zhenya couldn't decide where to put his mouth until Sid grabbed his hair and directed him firmly to Sid's mouth, soft and dry.

He tasted sour, and his hair was matted and tangled between Zhenya's fingers. He was definitely going to have to have a bath before Zhenya put his hands or mouth anywhere else. For now Zhenya focused on the soft heat, the feel of Sid's happiness coiling round him and binding him tight. The path was clear ahead of them, and the future - the future was here.

"I'm so glad you're here," Sid said when they parted, and Zhenya beamed back. 

"Glad I here," he said, and perhaps for the first time he meant it completely.


End file.
